Tag Archives: Sci-Fi

I think that the Seattle Weekly got it right. Interface is “a Manchurian Candidate for the Computer Age.” In fact, the whole time I read the book I kept thinking that the plot had kind of been covered in that movie a number of years ago. This isn’t to say that I don’t adore Stephenson. When I finally got around to reading Cryptonomicon, thanks to the nagging of my partner, I adored it: really brilliant, enthralling, and exciting. What attracts me to Stephenson’s work is that it is Sci-Fi but not the kind of Sci-Fi with spaceships and aliens, it is a world that looks just like this one except for one little thing… and that one little thing, which always seems like a good idea at the time (i.e. brain implants for stroke victims) turns out to have huge consequences.

Stephenson and George successfully indite the media-savvy political process of the late 20th and early 21st Century. I think they’re also right about how it will be medical technology that get people to surrender at least some of their rights to a computerized network- after all, who wouldn’t want their father back from a stroke he was never supposed to have. Continue reading →